Even though this semester is relatively calm, compared to last semester, I still find myself not writing as much as I think I would like. I've set aside, temporarily, the book I was meant to have finished reviewing last October, on MOOCs, until the semester ends and I can focus on them a little more. One reason for the refocus of energies is EDDE 804. We are focusing on leadership in education,

Rhizomatic Discussions!

Worlds have officially collided (either that, or the Rhizome has invaded my mind) ;-) This week is the beginning of Humanizing Online Instruction (or #humanMOOC) on the Canvas Network. As is usually the case, I tend to lurk in more MOOCs than I can actually "complete†"in any given period. Given my homework for EDDE 802, and my teaching work on INSDSG 684 (and let's not forget the day-job),

DALMOOC Episode 10: Is that binary for 2? We've reached recursion!

Hey! We've made it! It's the final blog post about #dalmooc... well... the final blog post with regard to the paced course on Edx anyway :) Since we're now in vacation territory, I've decided to combine Weeks 9 and 10 of DALMOOC into one week. These last two weeks have been a little light on the DALMOOC side, at least for me. Work, and other work-related pursuits, made

DALMOOC Episode 9: the one before 10

Hello to fellow #dalmooc participants, and those who are interested in my own explorations of #dalmooc and learning analytics in general. It's been a crazy week at work with many things coming down all at the same time such as finishing advising, keeping an eye on student course registrations, and new student matriculations, making sure that our December graduates are ready to take the comprehensive

DALMOOC episode 8: Bureau of pre-learning

I see a lot of WTF behavior from learners. This is bad... or is it?Oh hey! It's week 6 in DALMOOC and I am actually "on time" this time! Even if I weren't it's perfectly OK since there are cohorts starting all throughout the duration of the MOOC (or so I suspect), so whoever is reading this: Hello!This week the topic of DALMOOC is looking at behavior detectors (types of prediction models).

DALMOOC episode 7: Look into your crystal ball

Whooooa! What is all this?Alright, we're in Week six of DALMOOC, but as usual I am posting a week behind. In previous weeks I was having a top of fun playing with Gephi and Tableau. Even thought the source material wasn't that meaningful to me I was having fun exploring the potential of these tools for analytics. This week we got our hands on Rapidminer a free(mium) piece of software that provides

DALMOOC episode 6: Armchair Analyst

Week 6 CCK11 blog connectionsI was trying for a smarter title for this episode of #dalmooc thoughts, but I guess I have to go with Armchair Analyst since I ended up not spending a ton of time with either Gephi or Tableau last week. So, the reflection for week 4 is mostly on theoretical grounds; things I've been thinking about (with regard to learning analytics) and "a ha" moments from the videos posted.I

DALMOOC episode5: Fun with Gephi

CCK11 Tweet visualizationAlright, after a few days of being sidelined with a seasonal cold, I'm back on #dalmooc. Still catching up, but I have a feeling I am getting closer to being at the same pace as the rest of the MOOC ;-) In any case, this is a reflection on week 3 where we started messing around with social network analysis (SNA). This is cool because it's something that I

Continuing with my exploration of DALMOOC, we've reached the end of Week 2 (only a few days late ;-) ). I've been playing with Tableau, which I can describe as Pivot Tables on steroids. I briefly explored the idea of getting some IPEDS data to mess around with, however that proved to be a bit more challenging than I had anticipated. So, I ended up using the sample data of course evaluations

DALMOOC episode 3: Screenchomping the analytics cycle description

I've had this app on my iPad, by TechSmith, for the past few years, but I've never really used it. The App is called ScreenChomp and it allows you to have a digital whiteboard that you can use to write and narrate. I through that a plain text description of the learning analytics cycle (still catching up on week 2 of DALMOOC) would probably be confusing, and using PowerPoint and Adobe

DALMOOC, episode 2: Of tools and definitions

My Twitter Analytics, 10/2014Another day, another #dalmooc post :) Don't worry, I won't spam my blog with DALMOOC posts (even if you want me to), I don't have that much time. I think over the next few days I'll be posting more than usual in order to catch up a bit. This post reflects a bit of the week 1 (last week's) course content and prodding questions. I am still exploring

Value Map BadgeIt's Saturday, so it must be #OpenBadgesMOOC time :) The thing that I just noticed about these badges on the #OpenBadgesMOOC is that if you look closely enough they look stitched. Maybe there is an easter egg hidden somewhere, whereby if you earn all #OpenBadgeMOOC badges they send you a sash with all of them stitched on - LOL :)In any case, it's the end of Week 4 on the

Big Data, Evaluations, Adjuncts, Money

Last week was pretty interesting, but between storms, workshops, and work (it's advising and registration time), I only got away with one initial blog post last week. I did keep up with the discussion, thanks to a large part to the daily newsletter for #cfhe12. As I was reading the various blog posts, this popped up to me: MOOCs and the Teaching Profession. I was really surpsised (I think my

Mass is relative, and the need for numbers that make sense

This week on #cfhe12 I read a couple of posts of interest from my fellow participants (apologies, I am currently on the train with no connectivity, ore lease I would search for those post and link to them :-) ) and there were two key points that I wanted to reiterate, combine, and expand upon. The first point is that mass (well, "massiveness") is relative. I am sure I learned in physics that Mass is

Drinking from the firehose!

Well, the Bonk MOOC (Instructional Ideas and Technology Tools for Online Success) is almost at the end of Week 1. There certainly is A LOT of discussion going on, with more than 3000 registered participants; at least that was the number at last count. I honestly would LOVE to see the analytics at the end of the MOOC. That would certainly be some cool data to crunch (and perhaps write

On Learning Analytics & Assessment

Yesterday and the day before, the Educause Learning Initiative (ELI) was hosting a spring focus session on learning analytics. I have to admit that drew me to this talk (in addition to being interested in analytics of course!) was the talk that George Siemens presented at this ELI to kick things off. The first day was quite productive, but the second day I had too many other commitments to

Allergic to assessment or measurement?

OK, so now I am sort of in catch up mode to respond to some interesting blog posts I've read in the past few days on Change. I was reading a blog post from Brainy smurf on being allergic to measurement where he asks:Why does it even matter how I learned to perform as long as I can do the job well ?!” I think that you're not allergic to assessment (or measurement) but rather you are allergic

MOOC participation - open door policy and analytics

The other day I was reading ZML Didaktik on the topic of MOOC participants. In MOOCs, one of the big questions is why are people lurking and not participating? If more than 500 people join a MOOC, why are only 10% contributing with any amount of regularity? On the same blog, in a previous blog post, I had commented (it was an open stream of thought really) that perhaps there should be an open

CT2011 Sessions attended part II

Here's the final word, at least from me, on sessions that I attended at CT2011 this past weekThe first was the Google talk. You know, for all the hype about the limited audience and such, the talk was really about where Google is going; no specifics, and no marketing talk either, so it was all a bunch of ether as far as I am concerned. Google doesn't confirm or deny that they are working on an LMS,